The internet and information retrieval research: a brief review
| Pages | 209-225 |
| Date | 01 May 1999 |
| Published date | 01 May 1999 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007144 |
| Author | G.G. Chowdhury |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Journal of Documentation, Vol. 55, No. 2, March 1999
© Aslib, The Association for Information Management.
All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Aslib, The Association for Information Management
Staple Hall, Stone House Court, London EC3A 7PB
Tel: +44 (0) 171 903 0000, Fax: +44 (0) 171 903 0011
Email: pubs@aslib.co.uk, WWW: http://www.aslib.co.uk/aslib
THE INTERNET AND INFORMATION RETRIEVAL RESEARCH:
A BRIEF REVIEW
G.G. CHOWDHURY
asggchowdhury@ntu.edu.sg
Division of Information Studies, School of Applied Science
Nanyang Technological University Block N4#2a–36, Nanyang Avenue
Singapore 639798
The Internet and related information services attract increasing
interest from information retrieval researchers. A survey of recent
publications show that frequent topics are the effectiveness of search
engines, information validation and quality, user studies, design
of user interfaces, data structures and metadata, classification and
vocabulary based aids, and indexing and search agents. Current
research in these areas is briefly discussed. The changing balance
between CD-ROM sources and traditional online searching is quite
important and is noted.
INTRODUCTION
Ellis [1], while reviewing the progress of research in information retrieval,
observed that two conceptual approaches have dominated the field. The first
approach, which he calls the archetypal approach, derives from comparative tests
of indexing languages, while the second one derives from interests in cognitive
approaches that can be traced back to the mid-seventies. While this is quite true,
one can notice significant changes in the information retrieval world over the past
five or so years due to the emergence of the Internet and one of its most important
and widely used services, the World Wide Web (WWW) or simply the web. The
web can be thought of as an interconnected web of pages of information (text,
sound, images and video) linked in a flexible, non-linear manner, giving rise to a
seamless world in which information from different sources can be accessed in a
consistent and simple way. Another recent concept entering into the Internet
world is intranet which can be simply defined as an internal Internet, complete
with a web browser, integrated into an organisation’s existing information infra-
structure. While the Internet largely provides unrestricted access to its contents to
almost any member of the public, intranets strictly control access to their con-
tents, allowing authorised users only. Intranets consist of web pages, document
databases, and other information that sit on a web server or servers behind an
Internet firewall.
We are experiencing a boom in electronic information availability with the
proliferation of home-grown (individual as well as institutional), CD-ROM and
online databases on the Internet. One can now access the Internet and thus the
world of information services containing online databases (that are available
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Journal of Documentation, vol. 55, no. 2, March 1999, pp. 209–225
from traditional service providers such as Dialog), web sites containing OPACs,
abstracts and full texts of documents as well as multimedia information resources.
Rapid changes in the Internet, intranets and WWW are bringing up new issues
related to the storage and retrieval of information resulting in more and more
research in different areas of information retrieval.
Maurice Line [2], in a recent paper, identified some key areas of research and
discussion in the information field. He has identified the Internet as one of the key
areas covering several topics such as: bibliographic control, quality control,
implications for style and format, implications for libraries, individualisation of
information access, and so on.
The journal
Library and Information Science Research in its third issue of
1997 published an editorial on ‘the research agenda beyond 2000’. The editorial
reports that [3]:
Early in 1997, members of the Board of Editors were asked to submit
a short list of areas they felt would or should be the focus of library and
information science (LIS) research into the next millennium. The responses
of each individual are presented below, as evidence of diverse range of
topics, but with identifiable commonalities.
Indeed, different diverse areas of research were identified. However, a closer
look at all the different areas suggested by each expert, revealed ten major areas
that are, in some way or the other, related to information retrieval research, such as:
1. Internet and WWW (information retrieval aspects);
2. search engines and algorithms;
3. bibliographic control on the Internet;
4. user interface including common user interface, natural language
interface, etc.;
5. user needs/requirement analysis;
6. information seeking behaviour of users and cognitive approach;
7. digital libraries;
8. summarisation and representation of information;
9. visual information;
10. intelligent information retrieval including intelligent agents.
Some of these and many other areas of information retrieval have been, or are
being, researched as one could see from the reports on TREC series of experi-
ments [4–10], OKAPI project [11–13], and so on.
It may be noted that some of the research areas mentioned above are directly
related to information retrieval on the Internet and WWW, while others have an
indirect bearing on information retrieval in the Internet environment.
A search on the LISA CD-ROM database and a scan through the latest library
and information science journals revealed a large number of publications that
are related to information retrieval on the Internet and WWW, and they can be
broadly categorised into the following research areas:
●search engines;
●retrieval evaluation;
JOURNAL OF DOCUMENTATION vol. 55, no. 2
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Journal of Documentation, Vol. 55, No. 2, March 1999
© Aslib, The Association for Information Management.
All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Aslib, The Association for Information Management
Staple Hall, Stone House Court, London EC3A 7PB
Tel: +44 (0) 171 903 0000, Fax: +44 (0) 171 903 0011
Email: pubs@aslib.co.uk, WWW: http://www.aslib.co.uk/aslib
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